In:
Perceptual and Motor Skills, SAGE Publications, Vol. 117, No. 3 ( 2013-12), p. 761-774
Abstract:
The current experiment examined the mechanism of relational information processing by assessing transitive inferences in different syntactic structures. More specifically, the current experiment focused on whether the demands of conscious inference processing interact with the difficulty of syntactic processing. This research used the eye-tracking method to investigate online processing mechanisms in complex sentences with transitive inference. Overall sentence reading times, accuracy rates of comprehension questions, and the two eye-movement measures of gaze duration and re-reading times were examined in 32 participants. The results showed that inference processing demands affected overall reading times and accuracy rates, while syntactic processing demands did not have an effect on overall reading times or accuracy rates. The results of the eye-tracking measures showed that syntactic processing demands affected gaze duration, while the inference processing demand affected re-reading times. Apparently, the difficulty of inference processing was not affected by the surface form of a sentence. The results of this study suggested that basic processes of sentence interpretation share resources with other cognitive processes such as inference.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0031-5125
,
1558-688X
DOI:
10.2466/22.24.PMS.117x28z1
Language:
English
Publisher:
SAGE Publications
Publication Date:
2013
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2066876-4
SSG:
5,2
SSG:
7,11
SSG:
31
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